The foxes in Ghost of Tsushima have been petted almost 10 million times

Sony has revealed some key metrics about Ghost of Tsushima's first 10 days since launch, and there's only one stat that matters: foxes petted.

According to a tweet from PlayStation, there were 8.8 million wonderful little fox pets in the 10 days since Ghost of Tsushima released. And since it's now been two weeks since launch, that number has likely climbed well upwards of 10 million. Give us an animal to pet, and you damn well better believe we'll pet it.

In terms of other less-important activities, Ghost of Tsushima is generally being played a lot. Here's a handy breakdown of player engagement:

• 57.5 million duels
• 810.3 years on horseback
• 15.5 million photos taken
• 6.4 million standoffs
• 139.4 million enemies collapsed in fear
• 16.2 million onsen visited
• 28.1 million flute songs played
• 14.2 million haikus written
• 17.1 million bamboo strikes completed
• 37.5 million Inari shrines honored

Maybe we're petting foxes so much because we know it's a gift Sucker Punch at one point didn't plan on giving us. Talking to GamesRadar back in May, Ghost of Tsushima creative director Nate Fox (what are the odds?) revealed that one fateful gameplay feature made foxes pettable.

"Actually that was not always on the plan. We put in this business where the fox would guide you to shrines and the fox is lively, the fox is cute and people in Sucker Punch are demanding that they should be able to pet the fox. So you can pet the fox," Fox said.

Ghost of Tsushima has been generally well-received overall, and recently drew high praise from Yakuza series director Toshihiro Nagoshi. "There are numerous things I bow my head to, like aiming at setting a game in that time period...I could go on and on," Nagoshi said (as translated by Kotaku). "I feel an earnest sense of a job well done."

Take a break from fox-petting and check out our round-up of the best standoffs in Ghost of Tsushima.